New tool for police is a blast of sound

DEVICE WILL HELP SAN JOSE CONTROL LOUD CROWDS

Think louder than a jet engine. Think the front row of a Metallica concert. Think of the piercing scream of a smoke alarm - inches from your ear.

Now, imagine a bad guy, holed up with hostages, refusing to budge, surrounded by sharp-shooters and anxious neighbors.

Instead of bullets, San Jose police can blast him with the latest in high-tech cop gadgetry: a dish-shaped, sonic weapon.

This ear-splitting, mind-blowing device is growing in popularity around the globe, used by soldiers flushing terrorists out of caves in Afghanistan to cruise ships scaring off pirates in the sea off Somalia.

So why did San Jose plunk down $27,000 in state grant money for its own Long Range Acoustic Device?

Police say it will be used mostly as a high-grade sound system to clearly amplify a police officer's order at great distances. But it can also be used as another of the department's "less-lethal" weapons, along with Tasers and 40mm projectile guns.

Sgt. Dave Newman, a veteran SWAT officer, said the LRAD's sound blast could be used on a barricaded and armed suspect who refuses to surrender.

"This is just a tool in a tool box," Newman said. "We try to come up with tools that will provide a safe solution to the problem. That's why we have the Tasers. That's why we have" pepper spray.

The LRAD, Newman said, is a way for police tactics to evolve so they don't "become a dinosaur and head for the La Brea tar pits."

He recalled an incident in San Jose in the 1980s when a blaring Led Zeppelin song was used to wear down a suspect.

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San Diego-based American Technology invented the LRAD for the U.S. military after the USS Cole was bombed by a suicide craft in Yemen in 2000.Its 150-decibel wave can cause pain, nausea, disorientation and possibly even hearing damage.

While cops say they might use it as a high-powered megaphone to disperse crowds, they don't foresee using it on a bunch of hammered guys wearing colored beads on San Pedro Street at the city's Mardi Gras gatherings.

"I could see someone suing us for a loss of hearing," said Capt. Eric Sills, who oversees police plans for the city's large public events.

Local civil rights activists - still protesting the department's use of Tasers - said they are concerned.

"For me, it's a bad sign that San Jose would buy another weapon," said Raj Jayadev, a community activist. "Given the track record with experimental weapons, why have we never erred on the side of caution?"

Jayadev said police seemed to have a compulsion to get new "gadgetry."

"I don't know how this would replace good policing," he said. "Have they abandoned the notion of the diplomatic option - being able to talk down a crowd?"

Cops said that talking to a crowd was the whole point of the LRAD.

Sometimes suspects, arrested during rowdy crowded events, complain that they don't hear the order to leave.

The LRAD, police said, will solve that.

The LRAD's legend grew in 2005 when the captain of the Seabourn Spirit luxury cruise ship used one to help repel pirates who attacked the vessel with rocket-launched grenades off the coast of Somalia.

While most of the 1,000 or so LRADs that have been sold have gone to the U.S. military, about a dozen public safety agencies, including Sacramento and Santa Ana police, have also purchased them. The New York Police Department used the megaphone feature for crowd control during the 2004 Republican Convention.

The Santa Ana SWAT team used the LRAD to get 10 gang members holed up in a house to surrender.

"I know they have those crowds during Mardi Gras in San Jose," said John Gabelman, commander of the Santa Ana SWAT team. "That will be an excellent tool for them."